One of the more novel products to come out of Electronic Arts’ Burnaby studio recently isn’t a console game but an app.
Developed for EA by Vancouver’s Finger Food Studios, Vue is a free mobile app that allows users to create photo slideshows with soundtracks by tagging songs from their iTunes, Rdio or Spotify accounts. They can then email them to friends or share them on Facebook (Nasdaq:FB) or Twitter.
Weddings, funerals, graduations – any event that can be immortalized in photos can now have a personalized soundtrack too.
“You take your music, and you take your memories, and then you mash those together and come up with something that’s interesting and meaningful for you,” said Finger Food Studios founder and CTO Trent Shumay, a former EA software engineer.
“You can do all this in a minute. It’s all generated on the fly.”
The app has one big barrier, however.
Due to publishing and licensing issues, the creator can’t actually embed the music – even if he or she purchased the song from iTunes.
The only way a friend can hear the music tagged to a photo is if he or she already owns the same song on iTunes or subscribes to a music subscription service like Rdio or Spotify.
And like so many other music, TV and film streaming services, Spotify is geoblocked in Canada. It’s just one more example of how innovation continues to be stifled in Canada by licensing issues for film, TV and music.
Vue is not the first digital innovation to get bogged down in the Canadian music licensing morass.
“We have one of the most archaic music licensing regimes here in Canada [of] anywhere in the world,” said Bill Tam, CEO of the BC Technology Industry Association.
SOCAN, which represents Canadian music rights holders, has managed to close the Canadian border to popular music streaming services like Pandora by demanding what Pandora called “excessively high” tariffs.
“In other jurisdictions, like the U.S., even the RIAA [Recording Industry Association of America] has understood how the model should work,” Tam said.
“SOCAN was moving in the opposite direction, trying to have increased levies on digital music.
“So as a result, services like Spotify, Pandora and a whole host of other music-related services are essentially banned because they cannot find an economic arrangement with SOCAN.”
Until the licensing issues get sorted out, Vue has a workaround that will allow at least a 30-second preview of the music used in a photo album’s soundtrack.
If the recipient already owns the song on iTunes, or has a Spotify or Rdio account, he’ll hear the whole song.
If he doesn’t, all he’ll hear is the 30-second preview, unless he decides to buy the song or subscribe to a music service that has it in its library.
The idea for Vue came from EA, where Shumay worked from 1997 to 2005 as a software developer.
After leaving EA, Shumay went on to co-found Finger Food Studios, which now has about 65 employees.
The company has developed a number of mobile apps, but Shumay believes Vue is the one with the biggest potential.
Shumay thinks it’s only a matter of time before the licensing issues get sorted out, as big players like Apple (Nasdaq:AAPL) and Google (Nasdaq:GOOG) enter the music streaming space.
“We’re at the beginning of an era where there’s going to be a mass, rapid transition to streaming music subscribers,” he said.
“We’re looking forward into the future here a bit, where we see Apple and Google bringing streaming music to their platforms. We acknowledge that we’re looking forward here, but we have to do it now to be ready for when that hits.” •
